Martin Wolf, CBE (born 1946) is a British journalist, widely considered to be one of the world's most influential writers on economics. He is the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.

Contents

Early life1

Education2

Career3

Awards and recognition4

Bibliography5

References6

External links7

Early life

Wolf was born in London, in 1946. His father Edmund was an Austrian Jewish playwright who escaped from Vienna to England before World War II.[1] In London, Edmund met Wolf's mother, a Dutch Jew who had lost nearly thirty close relatives in the Holocaust.[2] Wolf recalls that his background left him wary of political extremes and encouraged his interest in economics, as he felt economic policy mistakes were one of the root causes of WWII.[1] He was an active supporter of the Labour Party until the early 1970s.[2]

Career

In 1971, Wolf joined the World Bank's young professionals programme, becoming a senior economist in 1974. By the start of the eighties, Wolf was deeply disillusioned with the Bank's policies undertaken under the direction of Robert McNamara – the Bank had been strongly pushing for increased capital flows to developing countries, which had resulted in many of them suffering debt crises by the early 1980s. Seeing the results of misjudged intervention by global authorities and also influenced from the early 1970s by various works critical of government intervention, such as Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, Wolf shifted his views towards the right and the free market.[1][2] Wolf left the World Bank in 1981, to become Director of Studies at the Trade Policy Research Centre, in London. He joined the Financial Times in 1987, where he has been associate editor since 1990 and chief economics commentator since 1996. Up until the late 2000s, Wolf was an influential advocate of globalisation and the free market.

In addition to his journalism and participation in various international forums, Wolf had also attempted to influence opinion with his books; he has stated his 2004 book Why Globalization Works was intended to be a persuasive work rather than an academic study.[2] By 2008, Wolf had become disillusioned with theories promoting what he came to see as excessive reliance on the private sector. While remaining a pragmatist free of binding commitments to any one ideology, Wolf's views partially shifted away from free market thinking back to the Keynesian ideas he had been taught as a youth. He became one of the more influential drivers of the 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence, where in late 2008 and early 2009 he used his platform on the Financial Times to advocate a massive fiscal and monetary response to the financial crisis of 2007–2010. According to Julia Loffe writing in 2009 for The New Republic, he was "arguably the most widely trusted pundit" of the crisis.[1] Wolf is a supporter of a land value tax.[4]

In 2012, Wolf stated in remarks for the Financial Times that public goods are building blocks of civilisation: security and safety, knowledge and science, a sustainable environment, trust, the Rechtsstaat, and economic and financial stability.[5]

Awards and recognition

Wolf was joint winner of the Wincott Foundation senior prize for excellence in financial journalism in both 1989 and 1997. He won the RTZ David Watt memorial prize in 1994. In 2000. Wolf was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire). He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by the University of Nottingham in 2006, and was made Doctor of Science (Economics) of University of London, honoris causa, by the London School of Economics in the same year.

Wolf is regarded as "staggeringly well connected" within elite financial circles.[1] His friends include leading financiers such as Mohamed A. El-Erian; politicians such as Manmohan Singh, Timothy Geithner and Ed Balls; many leading economists; central bankers such as Mervyn King: according to Wolf, he knows all significant central bankers.[1] Despite Wolf's close connections with the powerful, he is trusted for his independence and is known to criticise initiatives promoted by his friends when he considers it to be in the public's interests.[1] Wolf is widely regarded as one of the most influential economics journalists in the world. Lawrence H. Summers has called him "the world's preeminent financial journalist"[9] Mohamed A. El-Erian, former CEO of the world's largest bond investor, said Wolf is "by far, the most influential economic columnist out there".[1]Paul Krugman wrote of him that "Wolf doesn't even have a PhD. And that matters not at all; what he has is a keen sense of observation, a level head, and an open mind."[10]

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